War Through A Shattered Glass
by ArcticFiend
Summary: Aliens have invaded the planet Earth. And these aren't your friendly martians either, they are here to ravage the world. Follow the service record of Hyan Hun, newly recruited rookie. This is based on how he performs in-game. Reviews appreciated. Rated T for the time being.
1. Chapter 1

**War Through a Shattered Glass**

**Chapter 1: I Believe Introductions Are In Order**

I walked into a dim lit room. I could barely make out the five figures in front of me, military uniforms with high accolades but their faces obscured by shadows. It looked rather degrading compared to the relatively modern facility it was located in.

"State your name, soldier," boomed the middle suit. A commanding, deep bass voice that demanded obedience. It spoke Korean, my first language, with only a slight accent.

"Hyun. Hyun Han."

"And what qualifies you to be here?" This time it was the far left suit who spoke, a female voice this time but no less stern. It was a weird question seeing as my commanding officer had ordered me to come here to the Philippines, no questions asked.

"I've served in the North Korean Arm and am one of the highest ranking members of the North Korean Special Ops Forces, sir. I've served in-"

"We know of your serving history. Of your accolades and numerous battles," the second person interrupted. It angered me a little that they had asked what my serving history was if they already knew.

There was some more silence as I calmly stood beneath their scrutiny. I chafed a bit under my uniform, a no nonsense one much like theirs but less decorated. It stretched a tad tightly over my broad chest, a surprise to most as they normally only saw Asians as either skinny or sumo wrestlers. I resisted the urge to scratch an itch under my short, charcoal black hair and stood steadily at attention. A twitch of the moustache that covered my upper lip was all that betrayed my impatience. Surely I cut an intimidating figure at 6' 2" and muscular all around.

"Mr. Hyun, do you mind if we speak English?" said the middle man from before. I nodded my consent, having become fluent in it on urging from my previous commander.

"Good. Do you know why you're here?"I replied with a quick, "No sir," and wished that they didn't ask questions they already knew the answers to.

"You might be aware that your country has been under attack from an unknown enemy. The government doesn't give a clear answer, though, and you don't see combat with these foes." No shit, Sherlock. People reported abductions frequently and suddenly, talk of aliens was no longer confined to crazy people huddled to next to burning barrels. Of course the government kept mum. North Korea was communist and kept everything they could from the civilians. People were worried but there was no one to comfort them.

"Up until now, everybody has kept quiet. But we are aware of the threat. That's why we have come together and formed this group." I questioned who "we" exactly referred to but kept my mouth shut. I was about to get my answer.

"We are the XCOM Project. Funded by all the nations of the world, we have been tasked with protecting Earth from our unknown invaders. And if you haven't guessed it yet, this unknown enemy is aliens. You've been drafted into the service and are set to begin immediately." This was quite the bombshell for me. Not only did the entire world know of this but all the nations had banded together, and unheard of feat, to form a shadowy organization, but it was one that worked to defeat aliens from behind the scenes, out of everyone's public eye. I didn't have time to question this though. A large door opened to my right, blinding me with light in the dim lit environment while also managing to not fall on the mysterious speakers. A large black man with a noticeable underbite came through and half led, half dragged me through the doorway, which was apparently an elevator. The doors closed and we slowly descended down into the center of operations. My mind was slow to process what just happened.

"Wait, so you mean to tell me everyone is banding to get her to fight little green space men?" The black man laughed at my comment.

"Oh, you only wish they were little green spacemen. I ain't seen none that were green yet, and they ain't all short. Why-" he stopped speaking to me as something came through his radio that put a big grin on his face.

"You're in luck. We got a first rate example that could really benefit a greenhorn such as you." I was forcefully led through rooms to our destination, with a brief description given of each one as we passed through.

First was mission control. Displays were set up around the room with people of various races at nearly every terminal. The hubbub was surprisingly loud as they all spoke and it seemed a variety of different languages was all on display here. Everyone was centered around a holographic globe with countries divided into sections and various regions in warm colors. It didn't look good and apparently our slice of land had more bright colors than the rest. So not all of the differences between rivaling countries had been set aside after all. Surprise, surprise that our nation wasn't in the best shape.

Next was through the Barracks. From what I saw, we were using some of the most advanced weapons on the market. It made you wonder what exactly we were up against if we needed such advanced weaponry. Sadly, the mess hall and exercise room left you a little wanting as they clearly weren't where any money was being funded.

I was led through an infirmary into a science center where several braniacs were hard at work on an unknown device. Following that was the engineering bay where a different sort of braniacs were discussing terms so advanced, it sounded like a foreign language. We went down a large elevator big enough to hold a tank, through a room with a giant rotating satellite dish, and finally into a room of which was out destination. The main attraction of this room was a large, glass cylinder containing a tall Caucasian man. It was here that we entered.

"Meet one of our enemies. This… is what we call a Thin Man. They're probably the origin of Slender Man." Clearly they had made a mistake. This was a simple business man. At least seven foot tall, decked out in a nice suit and completely black spectacles, and a pasty whit skin tone, he seemed intimidating but he wasn't a threat to anyone but blue-collared workers. And then he spoke.

"Why hello. You're new, I can tell. Perhaps you can be reasoned with. There's been a misunderstanding. They think I'm an extraterrestrial, as crazy as that might seem." I was surprised to find he spoke Korean as fluently as I. In fact, he sounded rather proper as well and seemed very much an upper-class type of person. Apparently big, black man didn't approve.

"You can stop all this Chinese speak. You either speak English or not at all." Neither of us was happy with this. I had to voice my concern.

"Sir, I think we might be in the wrong here. He's no more alien than any random dude on Wall Street." He let out a mocking laugh.

"You think he's human. Then he's succeeded in his mission. Thin Men are the stealth and reconnaissance of the alien forces. And a little interrogation has revealed them to be grade-A navigators as well. Perhaps I should show you his true colors." The man then proceeded to slug the hostage across the jaw. I would've flinched at the brutality of it if the glasses hadn't have fallen off. Reptilian eyes. Behind those glasses lurked yellow reptilian eyes. He clearly wasn't here or even of this planet. The man produced a gun from his side holster and handed the pistol to me.

"now shoot it. We're done with him and they dispose quite nicely of themselves. But stand back." The alien put on a grimace that looked much more at home on his face than any smile. He knew the jig was up as I raised the gun up. He lunged at me with arm outstretched, causing me to fire off a reactionary shot. The aim was dead on and it struck right between the eyes. But he didn't simply keel over. Upon death, he exploded in a cloud of corrosive acid inches in front of my face. The blast was so close; it disintegrated the barrel of the pistol. The big, black man gave a hearty laugh at my expression to the floating cloud of poison and the incredulous look on my face.

"Welcome to XCOM, Han."


	2. Chapter 2

**War Through A Shattered Glass**

**Ch. 2: Calm Before the Storm**

I had only been there a few days but already most of us were as thick as thieves. I soon found out, though, how XCOM was able to buy all these high tech gadgets. Including me, there were only 14 members in our barracks. An entire alien army versus the 14 of Earth's most experienced soldiers with the most technologically advanced equipment money could buy or create. Yet general consensus from everybody else told me that we were behind the aliens in nearly all departments. We all prayed that they never unleashed the full might of their force.

Though I was the newest member, I was not the only rookie. Joining me at the bottom of the heap was Raul Vega, Vladimir Gusev, and Vasily Zaytsev. Among all these gods of wars, we all felt a little overwhelmed. And the king of the mountain was Captain Deadbolt Legetho, the wisecracking South African sniper who had greeted me on my first day. He was rough and crude, with a personality that bordered on sadist. He also happened to be the most advanced of us. I guess it's pretty easy to rack up kills when you don't have to get up close and personal.

Here, in the most exclusive and top secret organization on Earth, was the last place I expected to find somebody I knew. So I was floored to see that my old squadmate, Minjae Choi, was a part of the service, and a Sergeant at that. My former superior officer had said he'd gone MIA in the last mission I had seen him. Clearly a lie now, but then, I probably wouldn't have believed them had they said he'd been enlisted by an elite organization dedicated to hunting aliens. It makes me wonder if all my previous allies now believe the same about me. However, the reunion hadn't exactly been a happy one. He had been reserved and somber and Vladimir had informed me that he was still grieving over the last, and first, person to die. Apparently Choi, now known as Trips, was close friends with the recently deceased Nova.

So one day, as I saw him mulling over a mug of alcohol in the mess hall, I decided to try to consul him. But as soon as I put a foot inside, The Commander's (none of us grunts knew his actual name) voice boomed over the intercom.

"All soldiers report to the mess hall." So much for consuling Trips. It wasn't too soon after that the remaining 12 soldiers filed in, Deadbolt taking the front to speak.

"Listen up, everybody. We just got a report from The Council." Vladimir explained to me that The Council was the overreaching hand that controlled this entire project. It was actually a portion of them that inducted me. It was they who pulled the strings and who could also pull the plug should they become dissatisfied.

"Our performance results recently came in aaaand… we got an A." Deadbolt was greeted by a chorus of cheers. Somebody popped some wine and some glasses were passed around. I think I was the only one who noticed Trips leave early and skip out on partying.

…

Being separated from the other departments meant we often didn't find out about things unless we absolutely had to. Of course, things eventually trickled down to us but we never had a choice in these matters. We were given a nice tour of the new power generator of which we had known nothing about until now. It really was a room with basically all of its space taken up with a giant semicircle that housed the generator. Of note was the fact that the adjoining room was only recently excavated. The path through it was pretty much the only space that didn't have rubble in it. We learned soon after that that particular room was being turned into a satellite nexus. It was on that same day that we learned engineers were working on improving our medikits to provide more powerful healing agents. Four days after that, the scientists were going nuts. Careful probing revealed that they were ecstatic over the success of Project Waterfall, the project that had them examining UFO power sources. After some risky reverse engineering, they'd discovered that the ubiquitous alien spacecraft ran on Elerium, which was immensely powerful. Thanks to their progress, the engineers discovered it also could power a generator even better than a thermal generator, an impressive feat I suppose. I guess when you're dealing with the end of the world, you have to celebrate the small victories.

…

Sleep had came easily to me this night. I hadn't been left awake, tossing and turning as rest evaded me. Too bad I wouldn't get a full night's rest. The loud blaring of a klaxon cut through my sleep and I bolted awake. A look at the clock told me it was 4:09. This had better not be a drill. That small action costed me. Even as I rolled out of bed and got suited up, all the veterans were already raring to go. We ran through the hallways to the hangers. As we passed the control center, I noticed a country, Nigeria I think, flashing on the hologlobe. This certainly wasn't a drill.


End file.
